Hi Fellow Excel Addict,

I hope the past week has been good to you.

Have you been using my tips to make your work easier? I can tell you that over time, each of these tips will add up to save you a tremendous amount of time and frustration. We all could use some extra time and these the tips and shortcuts I'm sharing with you are easy and fun.

I'm amazed with how many people use long and difficult ways to complete tasks in Excel without even considering that there may be a better way. I always come from the notion that there's always an easier and better way for everything. I belive you think the same way or you wouldn't be reading this newsletter

So remember to practice each of these tips and over time you will be amazed with how much you can accomplish with Excel.

See you again next week.

To Your Success!
Francis Hayes (The Excel Addict)

Try this. Hold down the ALT key and press the down arrow and you will be presented with a drop-down list of all previous entries in that column. Select an item by using the arrow keys and then press Enter.

Format Your Cells Fast
As I've stated previously, it's always a good idea to know a keyboard method AND a mouse method for doing frequently used tasks in Excel. Here's another one for you.

You probably spend more time formatting your spreadsheets than actually entering data. If you could save just a few seconds each time you made a formatting change, it would make your job a little easier.

If you're in keyboard mode and you need to access the Format Cells dialog box, you can quickly do it from the keyboard by simply pressing CTRL+1.

Then send me an email explaining what it is. I will personally review every entry and select the one that I think could get "the biggest bang for the buck" with a solution from The Excel Addict. One lucky person will get a custom solution to their Excel problem just for being a loyal reader of my newsletter. The best part about this is, it won't cost you a BUCK and you'll get the BANG absolutely FREE. This could possibly save you hundreds of hours every year.

Submit your suggestions to BigBang@TheExcelAddict.com

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All you have to do each month is click here to recommend my newsletter and website to a friend. For each person that you refer, your name will go into the draw. The more Excel friends you refer, the more chances you have of winning a t-shirt. But please, recommend it only to people you know and who are Microsoft Excel users.

You can do it the slow time-wasting way:

1. Save the workbook
2. Close the workbook
3. Open your email program
4. Start a new message
5. Browse for and attach the workbook file to your email
6. Enter the recipients email address
7. Click Send

1. Save the workbook but don't close it
2. Click File, Send To, Mail Recipient (As Attachment)
3. Enter the recipient's email address
4. Click Send

It Doesn't Add Up Without Rounding !
If you've been using Excel for any length of time, you've undoubtedly come across a situation where you printed off a report for someone and they came back saying that it doesn't add up. That's very common in worksheets where you use division or percentage calculations in your formulas.

You see, Excel stores very exact values in its cells but it displays (and prints) only what you tell it to. So for example if you have a cell formatted to display two decimal places and the formula (=1/3) in that cell returns a result of .333333333, your displayed (and printed) value will be .33. If you have three cells with that same value printed on a report, it would appear to the reader that the total of these should be .99. However, the total of these on your spreadsheet would show 1.00. That's because Excel has added three amounts of .333333333. To avoid this problem, you'll need to adjust your formulas so that they will return a value that is rounded to the number of decimal places you want.

To round a formula to a specific number of decimal places, use = ROUND(originalformula,2)

The 2 in this formula represents the number of decimal places you want to round to. You can change this to suit your needs.

TESTIMONIALS: Please drop me a line at kudos@TheExcelAddict.com and let me know how my Tips, Tricks, Shortcuts, and Techniques have helped you.

COOL STUFF: Do YOU know of some "out-of-the-ordinary" really cool thing that YOU can do in Excel? Share it with me and I may publish it in a new section coming to my website called "Cool Stuff You Can Do With Excel". Send your suggestions to coolstuff@TheExcelAddict.com

OTHER COMMENTS: If you have any other comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know at francis@TheExcelAddict.com

There are tens of millions of other Microsoft Excel users all over the world. The vast majority of them have a very limited knowledge of Excel's capabilities. My goal is to share this information with everyone I possibly can and help them to benefit from Excel's amazing capabilities.

Please help me spread the word about my newsletter. If you know other Excel users, please tell them about "Spreadsheet Tips From An Excel Addict". I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please refer only people you know personally, who use Microsoft Excel and would benefit from this newsletter.